Jonathan Cutler

Vice President, Intellectual Property & Contracts @Ngen Canada

Montreal, QC, CA

NGen is one of Canada’s Global Innovation Clusters, part of a globally unique program to provide funding to consortiums of companies in order to de-risk, realize and commercialize unique technical advancements.I am the Vice-President, IP and lead the IP function. The IP function: Assists consortium partners in creating a robust IP plan for their projects, approves such plans, and monitors the project’s progress to ensure compliance with the plans, updates such plans as necessary, and assists in resolving IP issues that may arise during the project. Aspects of such IP plans include: Identification of relevant market participants and their material IP relevant to the project. Identification and mitigation of material risks to the successful completion of the project and commercialization of the results. Coordination with the project’s commercialization plan and determination of how IP (and what IP) can best support the commercialization. Elaboration of the specifics of IP protection that can support the IP plan. The IP function also: Educates project participants in IP, particularly the use and management of IP assets, IP risk in a corporate setting, and practical IP strategy. Compiles information required by funding organizations as IP KPI’s to determine the success of the program. Handles risk mitigation for the program itself.I am also the the General Counsel. I: Sit on the Senior Leadership Team managing the company. Advise senior management on legal issues. Participate in developing and implementing NGen’s business strategy. Have co-responsibility for elaboration and implementation of corporate policies, including, amongst others, cybersecurity and data privacy. Am responsible for major funding agreements with government organizations and private companies. Am responsible for contracts and the contracting process with funded organizations. Manage the internal legal team, external legal counsel and corporate legal budgets.